CHAIRMAN’S REVIEW

Tourism Has No Nationality

It is clear that we are having a much better year in tourism compared with last year. Russians have started coming again, Ukrainians can enter our country with their identity cards and demand is slowly increasing; these are all important indicators. I hope that the crisis between Germany and Turkey will be temporary and it will not affect the signed agreements negatively. Political crises are born and they are resolved. Tourism is an important concept that represents the freedom of travel, one of the most important freedoms of modern people. As a matter of fact, the earthquake to which we lost two lives in Kos Island in Greece has shown us that tourism has no nationality. When we shared our condolences with Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU Commission Member Responsible for Immigration, Internal Affairs and Citizenship in Greece, he confirmed this by stating that “we would continue our work to strengthen the relations between the two friends, Turkey and Greece, to build more peaceful, stable and sincere relations between the two countries that have always supported one another.” In the meantime, we are working together with the Governorship of Çanakkale to declare 2018 as the Year of Troy and we discuss possible projects…

During last July, we worked on bilateral tourism relations between Japan and Turkey. “Asahi Shimbun”, one of the most eminent newspapers of Japan, published an interview done with me. QTA (Quality Travel Alliance) Chairman Thomas Bösl, bringing approximately 8500 travel agencies in Europe, participated in our association’s board meeting in the beginning of August. And we have also met with ATTAL Chairman Jean Abboud to talk about the ongoing bilateral tourism relations and common projects between Turkey and Lebanon.

There are two other news I would like to share. General Secretary of our association Çetin Gürcün participated in the Board Meeting of the United Federation of Travel Agents (UFTAA). The meeting was organized in Salerno in Italy on 25 July 2017. Gürcün is also a member of the board at UFTAA. During the meeting it was decided that the UFTA Global Tourism Office will be opened in Istanbul.

Numan Olcar, Treasurer of the Board at our association, participated in the IATA meeting of UFTAA in Salerno on 26 July 2017. He delivered a presentation titled “Developments in Tourism in the World and in Turkey” as the representative of TÜRSAB.